In surface processing, there was always a need for marking and processing a surface accurately. For example, when drilling holes, a measuring tool is employed to find a position at which the hole should be drilled. In today's solutions different kinds of measuring tools are used to find such a position and to make a mark for a hole before actually drilling the hole. The measuring tools employed usually are tapes or laser meters. Thus, there is a lot of manual work needed before the drilling can take place.
Also when sawing with a handsaw or a jigsaw, there is normally some need to have some line or marker to follow in order to saw at the right place. Just as above, there are several steps necessary to create appropriate marks or a line on a surface of an object prior to sawing.
In another example, a surface is grinded, sanded, or planed. At certain intervals the surface is measured and depending on the measured results the grinding, sanding, or planing is continued or ended. These repeated measurements also consume a lot of time.
The same applies to routers. In order to establish a track several measuring steps have to be performed in order to generate the right path.
Thus, it is necessary to complete several measuring steps before a surface can be marked or processed. This requires the use of additional tools and consumes a significant amount of time. Also the measuring is at times not accurate enough.